The Gerald Laing Art Foundation is committed to the dissemination of useful and practical information necessary for the creation and understanding of drawing, painting, sculpture and other creative arts.

This initiative developed originally from a perceived need for a disciplined approach to the creation of sculpture in the public environment. This used to be the province of the Royal Academy in the days when that institution had a coherent policy as regards fine art. Even an undoubted genius such as Charles Sargeant Jagger (Artillery Memorial, Hyde Park Corner) had to be processed by the Royal Academy before he could proceed with the work.

Gerald Laing's earliest concern was to encourage the use of figurative sculpture in the public context at a time when abstract welded steel was almost the only medium employed, and it became mandatory to spend a certain percentage of the cost of a new building on works of art.

It is safe to say that most public sculpture is now figurative. However there has been a loss of the very language necessary for the intelligent discussion of the human figure in art. This vocablulary will have to be reconstructed. We must rediscover an emotional and intellectual base on which we can build the physical and symbolic perception of ourselves and our potential.